Tag Archives: motivation

This story from Miss Tara was emotional for Me: “When one of my students is having a difficult day (not following directions, crying, tantrums) we use the sad happy snack face token. It helps in turning her frowns upside down. We make a big deal when all of her sad faces are smiling. 123TokenMe is an awesome motivator!”

Here’s how: I start with five tokens and a target behavior of “take a bite.” Next, I use the app “peer to peer.” In other words, I have a peer use the iPad to award the tokens. The three of us have chosen an activity, such as building a fort, that they look forward to playing together after the successful completion of five bites. Shared activity time is something my kids work extremely hard for. I subtly model for the peer how to encourage the behavior- taking a bite of cheese, carrot, crunchy food, or ???

Working with a peer can be extremely motivating and is a key to learning social skills. If I work on this behavior during lunch or snack time, a whole group often starts cheering for my little picky eater as each token is awarded and transformed. A natural setting for social reinforcement- you can imagine the motivation this elicits. I’ve even had students keep going beyond their target of five and take extra bites. The feedback that the app and the peers combine to provide is very powerful.